FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – President Donald Trump’s administration held a news conference on Wednesday at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale after the U.S. Coast Guard reported offloading cargo that was part of over $509 million in cocaine and marijuana seized during 13 interdictions at sea.
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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said there were about 45,000 pounds of “pure” cocaine and 38,000 pounds of marijuana in the illegal shipments that were tied to two Mexican cartels: The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known in Spanish as “Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación” or CJNG, and Sinaloa.
USCG Vice Adm. Nathan Moore, the commander of the Atlantic area, said cutters James and Mohawk were involved in seizing the cocaine and marijuana and arresting suspects. He had a message for the cartels: “We own the sea; you do not. We will find you! Will hunt you down! We will stop you!”
Capt. Thomas Rodzewicz, the commanding officer of cutter James, said his crew “controlled an area the size of the continental” U.S., during counter-narcotics patrols that he compared to searching for “a needle in a haystack.”
Rodzewic said that during 56 days of patrolling the James “team of teams,” which includes pilots, drone operators, and intelligence officers, interdicted 11 drug-smuggling vessels and apprehended 34 narcotrafficking suspects.
“In all my years working on this vital mission, I have never witnessed such substantial results in such a short amount of time,” said Rodzewicz, who graduated from the USCG Academy in 2003.
Kash Patel, the FBI director, attributed the success of the mission to the Trump administration’s designation of drug cartels as terrorist organizations, which he added made the “interagency process” possible.
Lt. Gen. Evan Pettus, the deputy commander of the U.S. Southen Command, said the team effort against the drug trafficking cartels not only involved intelligence from prosecutions and FBI but also cooperation from the representatives of 21 “partner nations.”
Bondi said the teamwork resulted in 11 separate cases that will be prosecuted in the Middle District of Florida, but she didn’t release any information about the suspects other than the ties to the two Mexican cartels.
“This is a major blow to their financial operations and their efforts to distribute drugs around our country,” Bondi said. “It’s an example of a prosecution-led intelligence-driven approach to stopping these criminal enterprises in their tracks.”